ERP and Africa Revisited - Africa CAN Fly

The Chinese symbol for crisis uses two characters. One character depicts danger and the other opportunity, which is a perfect description of the current state of relationship development and the global climate. But there are great opportunities for those firms that develop strong strategic relationships to grow and flourish and turn apparent crisis into prosperity.

So, what do we have in Africa? Well plenty. This doesn’t mean to say we don’t have our problems but we also have opportunities…by the truck load. And all while Europe and the US get to grips with refugees, unexpected presidents and a vacillating Brexit, it’s time to fly Africa.

Africa has people. A billion of them, together forming one of the last mostly untapped consumer market in the world. So, Africa is on the map even if many visitors don’t know where it is. Everyone wants a piece – but this time it isn’t the same old ‘stick a flag in the ground, pass around the colored beads, share a bottle of good (is there bad?) malt whisky then annex a few million square kilometers for that trip’s sponsoring country’.

This time people offer aid, much of it tied to spending, assistance with economic growth, industrialization, and skill development.

This means local growth with better business processes driving more informed local companies to more effectively manufacture and distribute their world-class products. It also means the uptake of ERP and other business IT is accelerating – great for the ERP ecosystem! We are seeing our customers seek increasingly relevant new functionality to assist working people do more with less.

But beware. Developing continents like Africa, India, Asia Pacific, South America, have 65 percent of the world’s people with a much lower percent of trade and earnings, and justifying ERP with job reduction (as some businesses do) is a false long-term economic promise

It’s passé to plan to make the same output with less people, rather create far more capacity from the same people and assets, filling this capacity with demand from a greedy continent and world.

Doug currently heads up Professional Services for SYSPRO Africa. He has been a Scotsman in Africa for 30 years. He spent 14 of them at SAP through their initial to recent SCM solution growth. His last role there was Head of Africa Pre-Sales. He has worked in SADC, East, West and Francophone Africa.
At heart he’s a manufacturing/logistics business professional - rather than an IT techie. His passion is to help companies discover and implement innovation using people, processes and appropriate business IT. Doug enjoys writing, traveling, mountain bike riding and drinking Malt Whisky - but not at the same time!